The 1903 1st Church of Christian, Scientists -- Central Park West and 96th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In the years following the Civil War Mary Baker Eddy conceived of a new theological approach—one which focused on the spiritual and deprecated the material.  Her new organization, the Church of Christ, Scientist, grew despite detractors who dubbed it a cult—mainly because of Eddy’s conviction that illness should be healed through faith rather than man-made medicine.

In 1886 she sent her close friend, Mrs. Augusta E. Stetson, to New York to organize the first Christian Science movement in the city.   Stetson was a tireless worker--authoritative, charismatic, and convincing.  The New-York Tribune later wrote “Mrs. Stetson, after a labor of two years, organized the First Church in this city in 1888.”

Augusta Stetson was the first minister of the church.  As her New York church grew, so did her power and influence.  Stetson found both to be addicting and exhilarating.   The congregation outgrew its first rented hall at the corner of 47^thStreet and Fifth Avenue and moved to another hall at No. 138 Fifth Avenue.  Continued growth prompted its move to Hardman Hall at Fifth Avenue and 19^th Street; then to the old Rutger Presbyterian Church on Madison Avenue and 29^th Street.  Three years later the church moved again.  In January 1896 it acquired the All Souls’ Church on 48^th Street.

But under Augusta E. Stetson’s energetic ministry the congregation continued to swell.  In 1900 land was purchased on the corner of Central Park West and 96^thStreet as the site of a new, permanent church structure.  Augusta Stetson eyed the top of the heap in choosing her architects.  All of New York City was watching Carrere and Hastings’ monumental white marble New York Public Library take shape on Fifth Avenue.   The firm was now contracted to design the new First Church of Christ, Scientist.

The cornerstone was laid on November 30, 1899.  In it was placed a letter from Mary Baker Eddy to Augusta Stetson that read “Beneath this cornerstone, in this silent sacred sanctuary of earth’s sweet songs, paeons of praise and records of omnipotence, I leave my name with thine in unity and love.”

Later the Architectural Record would note “The building finally produced has been to a remarkable degree a development rather than the fulfillment of a formulated plan.”  Indeed, the $300,000 budget initially laid out soon was left far in the dust.

“Not content with brick and Indiana stone, Concord granite was ordered, though the cost of this material in itself, when set and under roof would be $400,000,” said the Record.  The white stone, quarried in Concord, New Hampshire, was valued for its characteristic of not discoloring when exposed to air; but rather to grow whiter.  Because of its extreme hardness, it could not be cut by saw or machinery and hand labor for cutting was necessary—adding to the expense.

Then came the reading room, Sunday school rooms and offices that were not included in the initial plans.  The cost rose to $550,000.  But Christian Science ideals did not approve of these rooms being housed in the basement, so more changes were made and they were moved above the auditorium and three elevators were added.  The estimates now had risen to $750,000.

Despite Christian Science’s censure of the material, “It was then discovered that a tower of a more expensive design would add to the beauty of the structure and this was also ordered,” reported Architectural Record.  “Finally, all limitations were ignored, new features were added as they were required to make the church more perfect in beauty and utility.”



photo The Architectural Record January, 1904 (copyright expired)

When the church was dedicated in 1903, the cost had topped out at $1.185 million.  Through Augusta Stetson’s unstinting fund raising the church was entirely paid for when its doors were opened.  The congregation totaled 1,200 members; but it had no intentions of moving again soon.  Carrere and Hastings had designed an auditorium that would accommodate 2,200 worshipers.  

The finished church was imposing and dignified.  The granite steeple—which rose to a blunt rather than pointed end--rose 200 feet above the sidewalk.  The massive corner cornice stones were 12 feet long, 8 feet wide and 3 feet, 6 inches thick—each weighing 18 tons.  Architectural Record called it New York’s “most imposing church edifice;” a “beautiful picture in glistening silvery white granite; stone, so uniform in color and quality, as at once to give one the impression that the whole must have been cut from one huge perfect block.”

photo The Architectural Record January 1904 (copyright expired)

The interior was decorated by Charles H. Cottrell who, too, was unswayed by the church dogma regarding materialism.   The auditorium was clad in marble and six large chandeliers, each weighing over half a ton, illuminated the space with 78 electric bulbs each.  The Architectural Record said “These fixtures are probably the finest example of a public chandelier in America.”

photo The Architectural Record, January 1904 (copyright expired)

Even before construction started, the Boston Mother Church was having issues with Augusta Stetson.  The New-York Tribune reported later “Mrs. Stetson’s preaching in the New York church had naturally brought her reputation and power.  In ‘The Christian Science Journal’ of April, 1895, therefore, Mrs. Eddy announced that preachers would no longer constitute a part of the machinery of her Church, and that their place would be filled by a first and second reader.”  Augusta Stetson obliged and became first reader.

“Her power, instead of decreasing with her curtailed opportunities, increased in spite of the fact that she was bound to a rigidly prescribed reading of the printed words from Mrs. Eddy’s book, ‘Science and Health,’” noted the Tribune.

Then a bylaw was enacted, in 1902, limiting a reader’s term to one year.  Even now, with her post as first reader taken away, Augusta Stetson wielded great sway and by the eve of the church’s dedication, the tensions between her and Boston were being noticed.

On November 28, 1903, the day before the dedication The Evening World reported “Christian Scientists, not only of the First Church, but all over the city, are expressing indignation to-day over the anonymous and groundless attack printed in most of the morning papers on Mrs. Augusta E. Stetson…This attack said that there was great friction which threatened to disrupt the First Church; that Mrs. Stetson posed as a dictator and arrogant leader and condemned her policy in refusing to join with the other churches in a downtown reading room.”

The day before the dedication The Evening World printed a photograph of both the new structure and Mrs. Stetson -- November 28, 1903 (copyright expired)

A year after the dedication, Augusta Stetson purchased the land immediately behind the church and commissioned architects Hunt & Hunt to design a white marble mansion.  On December 22, 1904 The Evening World reported that “The plans show that the house, which will be of marble…will cost $35,000.  There will be a one-story portico entrance on the side which will be ornamented with marble columns.”  Mrs. Stetson’s new house would cost, in today’s dollars, about $700,000.  She signed a contract with the church giving it first opportunity to buy should the house come onto the market.

Despite her ability to draw members and increase the church’s coffers; Augusta Stetson was heavy-handed and nearly tyrannical.  While the Boston contingent tried to rein her in, “She still remained the actual leader,” recalled the New-York Tribune in 1910, “and in 1908 she demonstrated the strength of her leadership when it became known that she had formed elaborate plans for the erection of a church on Riverside Drive, near 86^th Street.”  This would be the Second Church of Christ, Scientist.

“The announcements of this undertaking disclosed that the new church would be the most magnificent church edifice in the world.”

Stetson had, perhaps, dropped the last straw on the camel’s back.  A bylaw of the Mother Church forbade a branch church, such as First Church, to establish its own branch, such as Second Church.  The Mother Church officials condemned the project and the plans were dropped.  The damage, however, had been done.

In September 1909 “Mrs. Stetson’s card as a healer, together with those of her students who are also healers, was removed from one of the official journals of the denomination,” reported the New-York Tribune. 

Handsome carved urns surround the snub-nosed granite steeple -- photo by Alice Lum

Then, on November 19, 1909 the New-York Tribune ran the headline “Mrs. Stetson Out.”   The Mother Church excommunicated her, barring her from the church she had built.  The Tribune said that “Excommunication is rarely resorted to in the Christian Science Church, and in view of Mrs. Stetson’s prominence today’s action was regarded in Church circles here as the most drastic in the history of the denomination.”  She was charged with “malpractice” and with having put “personality above principle.”

The Church of Christ, Scientist had not heard the last of Augusta E. Stetson.

She continued to preach from her parlor to adherents whom the newspapers deemed “Stetsonites.”  In July 1910 sixteen practitioners “who were identified with and supported Mrs. Augusta Stetson in her controversy with the First Church of Christ, Scientist” were also dropped from membership by the Boston directors.  A month earlier fifteen other members had already had been dropped from the church’s membership.

Later that year Augusta Stetson must have enjoyed smug vengeance upon the reading of Mary Baker Eddy’s will.    On December 19 The New York Times ran an article headlined “Mrs. Eddy’s Jewels Go To Mrs. Stetson.”  Eddy had left Augusta Stetson her “crown of diamonds” breastpin; a token of friendship even after all that had passed.

With Mary Baker Eddy gone, Stetson opened the debate as to who should take her place at the head of the church.  Stetson audaciously asserted that she was the spiritual successor of Mary Baker Eddy.  She put forth her opinion in 1913 in a 1,200 page book.

“Temporarily, at least,” reported The Times, “the Trustees of the local church and members of the Christian Science organization decided to ignore Mrs. Stetson.  Her opinion and assertions were put forward in a volume which she has been writing in the four years in which she has seen the throngs passing under her window to the Christian Science Church, next door to her home, while she was forced to sing her hymns and read her lessons to herself.”

photo by Alice Lum

Augusta continued to be a thorn in the side of the church.  In December 1920 the memberships of the “Stetsonites” who had been banished were ordered by the courts to be reinstated.  The judgment said in part that they “were dismissed on the flimsy pretext of non-attendance.”

In what could appear to be retaliation, the church laid plans to build a wall between its property and Mrs. Stetson’s.  Because her ornate cast iron fence technically straddled the property lines, it would have to go.  Augusta Stetson armed for war.

A series of heated letters were fired back and forth across the property line and somehow were leaked to the press.  Both parties cloaked their positions as supporting what Mary Baker Eddy would have wanted.   At least in the beginning.

Stetson wrote, for instance, “This proposed infringement concerns those who, in love for the Cause and for their Leader, Mrs. Eddy, sacrificed their money and their time, and united with Mrs. Eddy and with me, in erecting this Church.  Therefore I feel obliged scientifically to consider their protection, and shall appeal to my God, whom I serve continually, to defend them and me, through avenues whom He, God, may choose to execute his law of justice and equity.”

Finally, in September 1921, Augusta Stetson took the gloves off.  When workmen appeared on the grounds of the church, she went to court.  Her attorney called the proposed wall “a spite fence” and succeeded in obtaining a restraining order, stopping construction of the 15-foot high wall.

The judge said in part that the wall ”would be violative of the rights of Mrs. Stetson, that it would serve no useful purpose and would constitute an architectural monstrosity.”

As years passed, Augusta Stetson clung on to her aspirations of succeeding Mary Baker Eddy.  Unable to espouse her views within the church, she turned to a campaign of advertising.  According to The New York Times “Between 1920 and 1925 she is said on good authority to have spent more than $750,000 in newspaper advertising alone.  These announcements were in the form of sermons, comments on letters or articles in which she defended her teaching of Christian Science and sought to prove that she was following in Mrs. Eddy’s footsteps and had been delegated by the founder as the Church’s leader.”

In 1909 Augusta Stetson was barred from entering the heavy doors of the church she had led for years -- photo by Alice Lum

But in her later years her ideas grew strange.  In 1927 she announced the coming of the millennium and “likewise, that she herself was immortal.”

Her belief that “her body as well as her soul would never die” proved inaccurate on October 12, 1928 when she died after ten weeks of illness.  The Times said in her obituary “Around her centered a great internal quarrel which at one time threatened to disrupt the Church, although she always insisted she was merely preserving Mrs. Eddy’s teachings and had no intention of creating a schism.”

The First Church of Christ, Scientist wasted no time in taking advantage of its option to buy Stetson’s marble mansion.  It quickly resold the property to the Sprevbel Realty Corporation for $180,000.  All ties between the church and Augusta E. Stetson were finally severed.

The First Church of Christ, Scientist settled into decades, finally, of no undo publicity.  It appeared in the newspapers once again in 1989 when Larry Hogue, a homeless man of the neighborhood, descended into a drug-induced rage.     Residents had noticed his mental illness worsen over a period of years.   More than a dozen times police had taken him to psychiatric emergency rooms or to jail following violent outbursts; but he always returned to the neighborhood.

Delirious on alcohol, cocaine or some other drug, he began smashing rocks through the stained glass windows of First Church of Christ, Scientist.  Before he could be stopped he had caused between $10,000 and $20,000 in damages.

In 1993 the congregation was still in the process of repairing the windows as well as correcting problems with the granite steeple.  The problem was money.  The congregation that Augusta Stetson had grown to 1,200 now had about 30 or 40 people at Sunday services.  The New York Landmarks Conservancy awarded the church an $80,000 grant to determine the extent of damage and recommend repairs.

photo by Alice Lum

In May 2001 the First Church of Christ, Scientist building became home to the Crenshaw Christian Center East.   The Center is a branch of the ministry founded by Pastor Frederick K. C. Price in South Los Angeles on the site of the former Pepperdine University campus.  

UPDATE:   In 2014 the Crenshaw Christian Center sold the historic church for $26 million; a tidy $12 million more than the California-based center had paid for it.  Because the building is protected by landmark status, it could not be destroyed.  But its century-old interiors could be.

The purchasing developer announced plans to convert the historic structure into between 20 and 30 luxury residences.  The only restrictions, since the interiors are not landmarked, were that the facade must remain intact and intrinsic details like the stained glass windows be preserved.

In June 2014 salvage workers scurry to dismantle the pipe organ as demolition of the magnificent interiors looms -- photo courtesy of Jim Lewis

The massacre of this beautiful and important structure represents just the latest in a string of ungodly transformations of historic religious buildings into posh residential projects.

The 1889 Beck House -- No. 249 Central Park West

The fanciful house stretched 100 feet down the block -- photo streeteasy.com/nyc

In 1887 both architect Edward Angell and developer William Noble were busy on the Upper West Side.  Following the Civil War and with the opening of Central Park, real estate developers speculated on the opportunities that the rocky, barren area held.  In place of the shanties and dirt roads, they envisioned a modern residential neighborhood.   By now development was going full-steam.  In 1885 The New York Times had noted “The west side of the city presents just now a scene of building activity such as was never before witnessed in that section, and which gives promise of the speedy disappearance of all the shanties in the neighborhood and the rapid population of this long neglected part of New York.”

Within two years Angell would be working on two rows of houses on West End Avenue and West 77^th Street in the Romanesque Revival style and the Hotel Endicott.  In 1890 construction would begin on his San Remo Apartments.  But for now, in 1887, he was working with William Noble on a string of rowhouses on Central Park West from 84^th to 85^thStreets.

Angell used a full bag of architectural styles and the Upper West Side was a perfect canvas.  Here the latest trends were reflected in stained glass, gargoyles, dog-legged stoops, and eccentric turrets and balconies.  In writing about the Upper West Side in August 1890, the New-York Herald said “As the time of square brick and brown stone houses has gone by, so alas has the time when New York can afford to neglect her approach and her outward appearances.”

For Noble’s nine speculative residences Angell turned to the Queen Anne style.  Ground was broken in 1888 and construction was completed a year later.   For his upscale homes with Central Park views, Noble spared no expense—these were, after all, intended for well-to-do families.   Construction of each of the residences cost $37,000—about $850,000 today. 

The homes—running from No. 241 to 249 Central Park West—were a riot of gables, bays, chimneys and angles.  Each was individual; yet they flowed together as a harmonious whole.   The commodious houses were 100 feet deep and 25 feet wide.  The additional wall of windows of the two corner residences, Nos. 241 and 249, made these two especially desirable.



photo by Alice Lum

No. 249 blended brownstone and red brick into an architectural whimsy.  A corner faceted tower rose to a conical tiled cap and delightful pseudo balconies.   "The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide" thought the group perhaps too whimsical; criticizing their “giddiness.”

The house was purchased by wallpaper manufacturer Frederick Beck.  The principal of Frederick Beck & Co., he would sit on the Board of the National Wall Paper Company upon its founding in 1894.  That company was an amalgamation of 17 wall paper manufacturers; creating a gigantic business concern.

Around 200 guests filed into the house on October 15, 1890 for the wedding of daughter Frederica to Rudolph J. Schaefer.  “The parlors were decorated with palms and a profusion of cut flowers.  At one end of was bower of roses, under which the marriage ceremony was held,” reported The New York Times.

The newspaper made note that Frederica’s “ornaments were diamonds.”  Among the more celebrated guests was the newly-elected Governor of New Jersey Leon Abbett, Rudolph Guggenheimer, and display manufacturer J. R. Palmenberg and his family.

Beck would stay on in the house through the turn of the century.   By 1914 it was owned by clergyman Luther Albert Swope and his wife, the former Rebecca Wendel.  The Swope’s comfortable financial position came from mostly from Rebecca Wendel Swope.

Rebecca had grown up in the Wendel mansion at No. 442 Fifth Avenue at the corner of 39^th Street.   The hulking brick and brownstone house was built by her grandfather around 1856.  John G. Wendel began as a fur merchant at the same time as John Jacob Astor; and like Astor he funneled his money into Manhattan real estate.  Despite his fortune, Wendel was notoriously frugal—The New York Times would later say he “let his contractor draw the plans [of his mansion] to save the architect’s fees.”

Along with Rebecca in the house were her brother, John Gottlieb Wendel and her four sisters.  Following their parents’ deaths the eccentric and controlling John ruled his sisters’ lives.  “Because of his aversion to automobiles and other modern improvements he became known as ‘The Hermit of Fifth Avenue,” said The Times.

The newspaper later said that he “taught them they must not marry or dissipate their stewardship and that publicity was demeaning.”   While Rebecca “resisted this training,” according to the newspaper, her sisters lived in a time capsule, insulated from the changing world outside the old mansion.   The Times said “The sisters dressed in styles of many years ago, lived frugally and simply, and persisted in hanging the family washing in the back yard in defiance of neighbors’ protests.”

In 1934 the Wendel mansion still sat at 39th Street and Fifth Avenue.  Note the wall extending to the right and the handsome old carriage house to the rear of the house.  photograph by Wurtz Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWFZDRV&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

John Wendel died in 1914 leaving Rebecca in charge of managing the family estate—worth at the time around $60 million.  On February 28, 1915 The Times noted “The sisters never ride in a street car and never in their lives have they been in an automobile.  They never shop in the fashionable district, for things are too expensive there.  They buy all their groceries and supplies in the inexpensive little shops over on Sixth Avenue and make their purchases personally, seldom letting them be delivered but carrying them home themselves and paying for them with cash.  They are quick to see bargains and watch for them like the poorest housewife.”

In order to prevent the State from receiving what had been estimated at between $3 or $4 million in estate taxes, John had quietly and quickly transferred the Wendel real estate into the names of his sisters during the last two years of his life.  “It had been done in such a gradual way that it will probably be impossible for the State to show that it was done with the purpose of evading the inheritance tax,” reported The Times.

The block was still intact when the Swopes were living here.  No. 249 sits at the far end.  photo NYPL Collection

Although Rebecca escaped the house and her brother, the Wendel family values were deeply instilled.   “Twice a week Mrs. Swope and her husband dare the wild adventure of the elevated to the downtown offices of the Wendel estate at 175 Broadway  They do not own a car and taxicabs are so expensive!” reported The Times, somewhat mockingly.

“There, surrounded by twenty or more ancient safes containing the deeds to the Wendel properties, they discuss with the manager the details of their affairs.”

Luther Swope had graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor’s degree in 1868 and a Masters in 1871.  Upon his death in 1924, he added to Rebecca’s personal fortune by leaving her $90,000.  She was now widowed, childless and fantastically wealthy.  Public speculation focused on the aging Wendel sisters who had no direct heirs.

There were only three sisters left now, and the following year Rebecca’s 79-year old sister Georgiana died of influenza which had developed into pneumonia.  (At the time of her death newspapers noted that the house, built at a cost of $5,000 was now valued at $2 million).   The family’s attorney, Charles G. Koss, was deluged with calls regarding the Fifth Avenue house which, said The Times, “has never been changed.  The dining room, parlor and library, it is said, are scrupulously kept in the exact condition in which they were left by the builder of the house, John Wendel, at his death in 1859.”

Developers were disheartened when it was announced that “Miss Ella V. von E. Wendel, an elderly woman and worth many millions, will live alone with the old family servants and carry on the traditions of the Wendel family in the old rusty brick mansion at Thirty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue.” 

On July 20, 1930 Rebecca A. D. Wendel Swope died, leaving Ella the sole surviving sister and the end of the Wendel line.    Readers were somewhat shocked, although surprisingly so, when her entire estate was left to the 80-year old Ella.  Following the filing of the will, The New York Times noted that “about $100,000,000, representing real estate accumulated by two centuries of the Wendel family, was not left to charity after all.”  Among the few items not left to her sister was the house on Central Park West.

“Mrs. Swope’s nearest relative after her sister was her husband’s nephew, George Stanley Shirk of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., to whom she left a house at 249 Central Park West, as well as cash deposited in various banks and personal and household effects.”

Eight months after Rebecca’s death, Ella died in the house at Fifth Avenue and 39^th Street, ending a most peculiar New York social story.

George Stanley Shirk maintained ownership of the Central Park West house for years; however he and his family never moved in.  Instead he leased it, maintaining the magnificent interiors not unlike his distant relatives had done with their ancestral home.   Then in 1957 the house was converted to apartments and the exterior modernized to comply with mid-century distaste for overblown ornamentation.   In a further attempt to update the old Victorian, it was slathered in white paint.

No. 249 lost its carved ornamentation, still evident next door at No. 247 (which also endured a coat of paint) -- photo by Alice Lum

One of the tenants, John Herget, purchased the house in 1974.  The former mansion would probably have remained a bit beat up if a chunk of the façade had not crashed to the sidewalk in 1989.  In order to repair the masonry, Herget had to strip off the paint and eventually the facade was somewhat unintentionally restored.

The magnificent woodwork of the dining room is unbelievably intact -- photo streeteasy.com/nyc

Around 2006 the mansion was purchased for $14.4 million and a conversion was begun to bring it back to a single-family home.   A real estate agent put a happy face on the gutting of the top two floors saying “most of the demolition work has been completed in preparation for the building’s metamorphosis.”

Exquisite stained glass survives throughout the lower floors.  photo streeteasy.com/nyc

Despite the outrage committed upstairs, the interiors of the lower floors are astoundingly intact.   The oak-paneled dining room with stained glass and coffered ceiling; the pocket doors and eccentric nooks all survive.   Relisted and sold in 2013 for just under $20 million, the once-abused dowager has reclaimed her position as grand dame of the block.

photo by Alice Lum

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church -- No. 3 West 65th Street

photo by Alice Lum

The first Lutherans arrived in America around 1620, settling along the Hudson River.   For two centuries they would be a religious minority in New York, overshadowed by, mostly, the Episcopalians.  But by the middle of the 19^th century, with the German population in New York quadrupled, the Lutherans were firmly established.

Among the handful of non-German speaking Lutheran churches was St. James.  Founded in 1824, its first building was on Orange Street—a gift to the church from Pierre Lorillard.  Later the congregation moved to a new church building on Second Avenue at 15^th Street.

In the first years following the Civil War an irreparable rift occurred among the congregants.   In 1868 a group splintered off, forming the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on January 27.   The new congregation purchased the former St. Paul’s Reformed Dutch Church at No. 47 West 21^st Street for $60,000 where it would remain for more than three decades.

As the turn of the century neared, Holy Trinity sought both a new building and new location.   At the corner of Central Park West and 65^thStreet stood the home of minister Rev. C. Armand Miller.   The Lutheran minister’s wife, interestingly, was Vice President of the New York City Indian Association.  The Association was formed that same year to “create and sustain a public sentiment…concerning the condition of the Indian tribes and the need of prompt action in their behalf.”

Before long the Millers’ house would be gone.   In June 1902 Holy Trinity began construction of a new church edifice at No. 3 West 65^th Street.    The last services in the 21^stStreet church were held in February of that year.  It was sold for $200,000 and while the new building was under construction the congregation worshiped in the auditorium of the Young Men’s Christian Association on West 57^th Street.

The architectural firm of Schickel & Ditmars had been given the commission to design the new structure.  Bavarian-born William Schickel and Isaac E. Ditmars were responsible for many of the buildings of the New York Roman Catholic Diocese, beginning in 1879 with the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer.



Streetcar tracks run down Central Park West in 1904 as the new church is completed -- photo http://www.holytrinitynyc.org/

Completed two years later at a cost of $350,000 including the land (about $7 million in today’s dollars), the new Holy Trinity Lutheran pretended to be of stone construction.   But, as The New York Times reported, “the structure is almost entirely of steel, including its two towers and steeple.”

Schickel & Ditmars drew on 13^th century Gothic churches for inspiration.  The Times compared it to La Sainte Chapelle in Paris; and although the comparison was rather grand, the central fleche and overall form shared the same pedigree.

Gargoyles stretch from the copper-clad fleche -- photo by Alice Lum

Inside Schickel used colorful stenciling and mosaics in the soaring sanctuary.  The New York Timesnoted that “The roof is supported by graceful arches resting on columns of green marble.”

Sunlight floods the sanctuary through windows awaiting stained glass -- photo http://www.holytrinitynyc.org/

The church was consecrated on the afternoon of May 15, 1904 in the first of a four-day celebration.  It was stressed to the press, however, that services would be “of the most simple character.”  Appropriately Rev. C. A. Miller delivered the first sermon in the new building that stood on the site of his former home.   The Times reported on the over-flow crowd.  “The church was crowded even to the organ loft with the 690 members, their friends, and well-wishers, and many who sought admission were turned away.  Among those who had seats of honor were the eleven survivors of the eighty original members.”

Sunlight flooded through the windows, most of which awaited dedicatory stained glass.   One of the first of these, installed in 1904, was The Second Coming of Christ window executed by Tiffany Studios.   Over the next few years magnificent stained glass windows would be installed one-by-one.

Tiffany Studio's Second Coming window was among the first to be installed -- photo http://www.holytrinitynyc.org/

A year after the United States entered World War I, Rev. Charles J. Smith left for France as a member of the National Lutheran Commission for Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Welfare, New York.  The New York Times reported that he “is pastor of one of the most influential Lutheran churches in New York City.”

The Lutheran churches of France had arranged to take care of the nearly 200,000 American Lutheran soldiers in France.  “In essence it aims to bring the Church to the boys wherever they may be, not only to give them the comfort and encouragement of their faith, but to give them a welcome and make them feel at home on foreign soil.”

The purpose of Smith’s journey with the Commission was “by fellowship and counsel to hearten the Lutheran Church in France, and to assist this church both in ministering to its own people and to the United States soldiers, whom it may have opportunity to serve.”

One of those soldiers was Gerold Dieterlen.  The young man never returned from the war and his grief-filled mother commissioned a mosaic reredos behind the alter in his memory.   The panel was designed and executed by Charles R. Lamb, in conjunction with Talbot Hamlin of the department of architecture at Columbia University.  Reverend Dr. Smith gave the sermon at the dedication on January 9, 1927.

The memorial was in the form of a triptych with Christ in the center flanked by two angels symbolizing the church militant and the church triumphant.  The exquisite work was called at the time “one of the most important contributions to the art of ecclesiastical mosaic of recent years.”

In a somewhat ironic twist, in May 1938, St. James Lutheran Church—from which Holy Trinity had spun off—was in serious financial trouble.   On May 27 The Times reported that “The 111-year-old congregation of St. James Lutheran Church, the oldest of the denomination holding worship in English, will abandon its present edifice at the southwest corner of Madison Avenue and Seventy-third Street after 11 A.M. worship on Sunday, June 5.” 

Unable to make its mortgage payments, the congregation voted to worship “temporarily” with Holy Trinity Lutheran Church.  Newspapers reported that “St. James will keep its charter in the hope that it may some day establish a place of worship again on the East Side.”  The friction of nearly a century earlier was forgotten and the two congregations worshiped together once again.

After a process spanning four decades, the final of the eight stained glass windows was installed on June 1, 1941.  The Last Supper window was dedicated to the memory of Carl Pickhardt, one of the original founders.  Based on a painting by Zimmerman, the thirty-foot window was executed by Julius C. Koechig & Sons of French and English glass with French mineral colors.

In the 1950s Charles Lamb Studios created six more mosaics to complete the 1927 reredos.  The pastor at this time was Rev. Robert D. Hershey who made Holy Trinity a household name nationally with his broadcasts of Sunday musical vespers, mostly by Bach.   Hershey’s broadcasts would continue for several decades; and the Bach programs continue to the present.

photo by Alice Lum

As the neighborhood developed, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church became somewhat dwarfed.  Yet Schickel & Ditmars’ classic 13^th century Gothic structure with its beautifully patinaed copper fleche is a welcomed oasis among the soaring apartment towers of Central Park West.